Since time immemorial, it seems that there has been a conflict between the industrialization of the continent and its burgeoning population. Not until 1970, however, did this conflict become a matter of national conscience by virtue of the passage, by Congress, of the Environmental Quality Improvement Act, which, together with several Executive Orders, established the EPA and several other related organizations. Since that time, however, the high-minded goals of the EPA have become stark reality for millions of people whose rudimentary requirements for existence have become threatened by the by-products of an industrial age.